Peoria Standard

GOP candidate for state representative Travis Weaver is seeking the party’s nomination for the 97th District. 

Weaver, a former Caterpillar employee, is a 29-year-old businessman who is focused on the state’s pension crisis, high taxes and poor educational outcomes. 

“Illinois has the nation's largest unfunded pension liability, the worst credit rating, the heaviest tax burden and a high school graduation rate that trails all of our neighboring states,” Weaver told the Peoria Standard. “But as I looked at myself, I saw a person that could bring solutions to those problems. Like with pensions, for example, I was at Caterpillar, I spent a lot of time working on pensions. I actually led a project that brought the U.S. pension from 72%, funded up to 93% funded with a credit rating. I spent a lot of time managing our credit rating, especially in 2017. That was a really, really hard financial year for the company and we were able to maintain our target materials in really effective relationship work with the three major rating agencies. I know the agencies well, I know what they look for. So as a huge problem for the state, that's an area where I can bring some strength.”

Editorialist George Will recently reported Illinois’s pension crisis is unsolvable given the current political climate in the state. 

“The unfunded liabilities of state-managed pension systems are $313 billion, which is around 30% of Illinois’s gross domestic product,” Will wrote in The Washington Post. “Even sustained brisk economic growth would not solve the pension crisis under current law. And current law makes such growth impossible.”

The old 97th District is represented by State Rep. Mark Batinick (R-Plainfield) who is not running for re-election. Weaver faces State Rep. Mark Luft (R-Pekin) who was drawn into the district. Luft's current district is the 91st.

“I did eight years,” Batinick previously told Chicago Sun-Times. “This was never meant to be a career for me personally. I certainly respect people who are there longer and do hard work, and there’s a lot of good people down there, but I’m kind of a ‘move up or move out’ guy, and I’m choosing to move out.”

Weaver has an edge in that his father, Chuck Weaver, was a popular state senator who oversaw the same constituency from 2015 until 2021.